


such a blind and senseless tree

by ElbridgeGerry



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: F/M, Faramir is a Wife Guy, Jealousy, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-28 15:27:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30141627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElbridgeGerry/pseuds/ElbridgeGerry
Summary: The past and the future meet. Éowyn, naturally, has thoughts.orÉowyn knows that the best time to have an emotional conversation is when your husband is going down on you.
Relationships: Éowyn/Faramir (Son of Denethor II)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	such a blind and senseless tree

Once, in her younger and more naive days, Éowyn had told the then-Princess of Dol Amroth that she was not prone to self doubt. And she had meant it and been right, and there is yet to be a fight that Éowyn has willingly backed down from or an opponent that she has not bested. She has ridden out with her husband to track and destroy the wandering remnants of the Enemy’s army, and she has never once flinched; she has stared down schemers and traitors and gone home to sleep quite well, thank you very much. 

Today, she stared down the new Lord of Tharbad, in front of all the high lords of Gondor and Arnor, the King of the Reunited Kingdom, the King of Rohan, and diplomats and emissaries from all their closest allies, and did not blink until he had agreed that the waterway tolls on the Gwathló were too high and could be lowered by at least twenty percent for the duration of the high season. Self-doubt is not a word normally in her dictionary. 

Now, however, Éowyn might be feeling the faintest twinge of self-doubt. 

She has insisted — against the counsel of nearly everyone she speaks to — that she will not withdraw from her duties until the very moment that her baby decides to enter this world, which is how she’s ended up here, crushed into a wildly uncomfortable chair in the corner of Merethrond, feeling as big as a house and utterly bereft of interest in tonight’s festivities. She has never been cheerful for cheer’s sake before, but her mood has turned for the worse in the past few weeks, and the two queens present have taken to following her around to hear her snipe unabashedly at anyone who makes the mistake of crossing into her line of sight unwelcomed. 

Her face is hot, her hair feels heavy against her head, her breasts itch, her pelvis is in agony, her lower back seems like it might never go straight again, and she is _miserable_. She has taken to dressing in darker colours, at first because they made her seem more deathly-serious than her typical whites and yellows, but now, as she told her (alarmed) husband with a wicked grin, because dark burgundies will hide the colour of blood better. Looking out at the happy, young dancers and revellers, she wishes she had worn her customary white, that she might look something reminiscent of her former less-tired self. 

She would never suspect her husband of infidelity, she knows him too well, loves him too much to ever let those sorts of insecurities afflict her. Still, she hears the gasps and whispers when Lelyainde, wife of Glamhroron, Lord of the Andrast, enters the hall. She is a stunning woman, no doubt, with beautiful chestnut hair that marked her as a child of Tolfalas, but not lacking any of the arch grace of the descendants of Númenor. 

Lelyainde has had a disproportionate presence in Éowyn’s life, given that she has never officially met her. She was (as the women of Minas Tirith had gone through great pains to remind Éowyn when she had first entered their society at the end of the war) the woman Faramir was long expected to marry, until the burdens of the war had become so great that anything that wasn’t fighting or preparing to fight fell by the wayside. 

They have, of course, talked about it — it had been one of the very first secrets they’d shared in the Houses of Healing. When Éowyn had believed that her having once been in love with the future king might make her unworthy of accepting anybody’s love in the future, Faramir had patiently confessed that he too had been in love once, but had come to realise that he had been in love with the idea of being in love more than anything else. 

So: they’ve talked about it, and she isn’t worried that her husband is going to go running off down some deserted corridor to get his rocks off (though, she thinks sourly, if she were slightly less pregnant it might not be totally out of the question), but there’s still a bitter prick of _something_ in her chest as she watches the woman cross the hall and greet Aragorn and Éomer. She’s wearing a white gown, Éowyn realises bitterly, unable to tear her eyes away. 

“Strange, I think, that her son has not come with them,” Lothíriel whispers, eyes flickering between Lelyainde and Éowyn. 

“Why should that be strange, is he not very young?” Éowyn asks, pushing in vain on her swollen belly as if that might somehow induce her squirmy baby to ease off her lungs. Alas no, he is every bit as stubborn as his father and even more committed to literally taking her breath away. 

“Seventeen or eighteen now, he was presented to the court not a year ago,” Arwen says, sipping from her wine glass.

“Béma,” Éowyn mutters, never able to fully filter her thoughts, but especially not now. “Faramir truly is ancient, isn’t he?” Lothíriel fails to stifle a laugh, and Arwen smiles, obviously unoffended. She watches Lelyainde and her husband turn to seek out the queens, and sighs in frustration. “Oh, the Valar help me.”

Lelyainde, she notices, walks ever-so-slightly behind her husband, not out of any sort of reticence (or at least none that she can see) but apparently out of deference. Éowyn snorts in derision, then tries to pull herself up to something akin to a stately posture, even if the entire front half of her body seems ready to tumble off of her like an avalanche of gore. Glamhroron bows swiftly when they make their approach, stepping aside so that his wife can dip into an artful curtsey. Éowyn presses her lips into a tight line. 

“Queen Arwen, Queen Lothíriel, Lady Éowyn,” he begins, “might I present my wife, Lady Lelyainde?” Arwen smiles regally, and Lothíriel dips her head in greeting. Éowyn unsubtly rubs her hand over her stomach, silver wedding band glinting in the light. 

“We are glad to have you among us at last, Lady Lelyainde. The stories of your aptitude for dancing have long graced our halls, and I am hopeful I might finally see it for myself,” says Arwen, the tone of her voice revealing nothing. 

“I have heard you danced quite well with my cousin, the Prince of Ithilien,” Lothíriel adds. “He must be around here somewhere, if our Elvish guests haven’t whisked him away to another world entirely.” Lelyainde sweeps her eyes over Éowyn, and Éowyn struggles to understand the emotion behind them — pity? Envy? Inquiry?

“It is not the _Elves_ who have led the Prince astray, but one in particular, the Prince of the Woodland Realm.” Éowyn sighs once more, resigning herself to her fate. “They are no doubt out on one of the balconies, brazenly shirking their social duties. Go, seek him out and induce him to do what common sense alone cannot.” 

Lelyainde nods imperceptibly, then takes her leave, her husband following at her heels. Éowyn slumps backwards, glaring across the hall as the Prince of Dol Amroth spins Lady Melcien of Anfalas across the floor. 

“You are a menace and a scoundrel,” she tells her new sister when Lelyainde is clear out of hearing range. Lothíriel smiles placidly. 

“I will neither confirm nor deny your accusations, but merely say that I am wholly bored with our social routine and should like to stir some gossip to make tomorrow’s meeting more interesting.” 

“Incorrigible girl,” Éowyn scolds, and even Arwen laughs. 

“A foolish woman indeed who speaks to the Queen of Rohan thus,” says Éomer-King, newly arrived on the scene.

“Foolery, brother, does walk about the world like the sun, it shines everywhere,” Éowyn snaps at her brother, who laughs merrily. 

“I wonder what it is that so angers the White Lady of Ithilien,” he asks, though he watches the White Lady’s husband lead the Lady of the Andrast out onto the dance floor and clearly needs no answer. 

“It is the heir to Rohan’s throne that puts me in such a way,” she warns, patting her belly. 

“Nay, sister, when he angers you, he is entirely the future Prince of Ithilien.” Éowyn rolls her eyes, and Éomer offers his hand to the Queen of the Reunited Kingdom, whose stomach, Éowyn notes with interest, is gently rounder than it was the last time Éowyn was in Minas Tirith. 

It is fortunate that Aragorn has never been fond of dancing and has no interest in reciprocating his fellow king’s courtesy, because Éowyn, despite her mood, has no interest in sitting alone at the sidelines of a dance. Particularly a dance that her husband seems to be leading. 

She has to admit, they _do_ dance well together. Lelyainde moves almost as delicately as Gondor’s half-elven queen, though, unlike Arwen, is a relatively new sight for the court’s oglers and gossipers, and every eye in the room seems to be trained on her, as she spins and dips in Faramir’s arms. There’s an ease to their movements, like a string pulled taut between their arms and legs, pulling and pushing them back and forth as if it could only ever be this way, as if the Valar themselves have decreed it.

For a fleeting moment, envy overcomes her, and she is furious that she is stuck in this position, enormous and unwieldy and totally out of control of her own body, forced to sit here uselessly while beautiful women wrap their hands around her husband’s shoulders. As the music crescendos, her baby delivers a swift kick to her stomach, sending her jolting upwards in her seat. Lothíriel leans forward, reserved concern in her eyes as Éowyn’s hand flies to her stomach, trying to soothe the rambunctious little soul within. 

“I am being reprimanded for my jealousy,” she tells the northern queen, squeezing her hand in appreciation. 

“You have never loved Gondorian dances,” Lothíriel reminds her gently. “Nor have you relished being the centre of attention at these events.” Éowyn concedes the point with a tilt of her head, then, as if to punish her for her magnanimity, the pain returns, turning her abdominal muscles into a vise-grip. Éowyn scrambles for Lothíriel’s hand, squeezing it hard. 

“No indeed,” Éowyn grits through the pain. 

“If I were you, I might see this as a gift,” Lothíriel continues, smiling as Éomer and Arwen sweep past them. 

“Quite.” 

#### ≿————- ❈ ————-≾

Later, she stands in front of the fireplace in their chambers, breathing steadily as Faramir unhurriedly untangles the ties on her gown. This has become their habit since they married, to dismiss all the household servants the night of official functions so that they can return to a quiet home that is entirely theirs, removing their battle armour and becoming one another’s entirely. 

The grate at the fireplace will need to be cleaned tomorrow, she thinks as he pulls at the strained waist of her gown. And she will need to send for more things from Emyn Arnen, the Great Council has been slow to progress, and it seems increasingly likely that their child will be born here in the staid white walls of Minas Tirith and not the verdant green meadows of Ithilien. 

“She is very beautiful,” she says as her husband pulls her gown over her head. 

“Who is?” He asks, dropping her shift to the carpet below.

“Lady Lelyainde,” she whispers, keening into the hand that ghosts over her breast.

“Yes,” he says simply, pressing open-mouthed kisses to her shoulders, the back of her neck. “Her husband thinks so too,” he adds, a hint of warning in his tone. 

She drops it, focuses on the wet heat of his mouth on her skin, the tug of his calloused fingertips dragging up and down her back. He’s still fully dressed, and she tries to remedy that, but he catches her wrist in his hand, kissing it then pinning it firmly to her side. He drops to his knees before her. The embers crackle in the hearth. 

“She dances well.”

“Éowyn,” he grouses, resting his forehead on her hip. “She dances well because she practices often. You have not once shown even the slightest inclination towards dances that are not Rohirric.” She threads her fingers through his hair. 

“Lothíriel said the same thing,” she muses, and he returns to kissing the tops of her thighs. 

“Then what would you have me say that I have not said already?” 

She stares into the fire, absentmindedly running her hands over her belly, smiling at the fluttering she feels beneath the skin. 

“I had hoped you might use that canny mind of yours to think up something,” she tells him, her breath hitching when his hand slides up the inside of her thigh. She leans against the nearest pillar of their bed frame, staring into the fire as his mouth closes and opens around her. Her fingers tighten in his hair, nails scraping gently against his scalp. He says nothing, letting his expert fingers do the talking, and while she’s not opposed to the attempt, it’s not enough. 

“I’m frustrated,” she admits. 

“Not half as frustrated as I,” he murmurs. She huffs out a laugh at the desperate insolence in his voice. For however good he is at masking his emotions in public, he has never been able to manage the same restraint with her. 

“I long to meet our child, truly,” she begins, and he lifts her leg over his shoulder. “But I want to meet him so that I might also have my body returned to my sole proprietorship.” His barely-there stubble scrapes against the soft skin on the inside of her thigh, and she reaches behind her to grab the bedpost to steady herself. 

“I miss working in my garden, and sparring in the practice yards, and riding Windfola,” his free hand stays her canting hips. “And yes, dancing with my husband, even if I find the dances frivolous.” 

She stops talking, but silence doesn’t fall — instead, soft whimpers turn into breathy moans that in turn give way to hoarse cries. She has never been quiet, has no intention of stopping now. Even here in Minas Tirith, where the windows are thinner, the neighbours closer together, she doesn’t hold back, it’s never been her way, and besides, who is she to secret away what her husband is capable of?

He helps her into bed, pulling the covers up to her shoulders before he strips down, tidying away their worn clothes as always. She watches him work, appreciates the strong lines of his body, the way his dark hair dusts his shoulder blades. When he crawls into bed, he kisses her belly, whispers something to it that she’s too exhausted to make out — it will have to remain a secret between him and their child. 

“You know that I love you,” he tells her. It is not a question. 

“Yes.”

“And you and I alike know that you will be back to gardening and sparring and riding and dancing well before you probably should be allowed to.” 

“Yes.” 

“Then sleep, my love. You know who you are.” 

**Author's Note:**

> • éowyn’s line about foolery walking about the world is a lightly adapted theft from shakespeare’s twelfth night  
> • title taken from mary lamb's [envy](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/51928/envy-56d23002e9404).


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